peter baldwin arts - brooks, maine

I feel very lucky to be partnering with Peter Baldwin for the installation of this weekend's pop-up shop in Belfast. Based in Brooks, Maine, Peter is a woodworker who produces beautifully-crafted orchard ladders. For my purposes, setting up shop in a space where the walls are to remain untouched and with the benefit of very high ceilings - these freestanding sturdy ladders are the perfect solution to pop-up fixtures. A variety of Peter's offerings - straight, pointed and tripods - will be seen. Sourced from across Maine, the wood used is bigtooth aspen for the side rails which contrasts nicely with ash for the rungs.

Peter has lived in Maine since 1971. When considering a potential product made of wood, he turned to his home state of New York where he grew up in an orchard and spent his childhood playing on tree ladders. His first year was 1984 and he built fifty ladders; the following year, one hundred. Currently he averages 1000-1200 ladders a year. His work is widely distributed and his largest markets are back in New York and in Michigan.

Everyone to whom I've mentioned Peter knows and highly regards him. I'm still new to the area, but I gather Baldwin Arts is an institution in these parts.  His generosity extended to allowing me to grab offcuts from the shop to route into hanging rods and plane into shelving. (Another byproduct will go to a friend's sawdust toilet.) The result is a flexible modular system that is high functioning and visually interesting. One more reason to visit the shop!

Pre-inventory:

built on squares

Kaftan, tunic, serape... I like the simplicity of the construction of these garments - based on single squares and rectangles - and the resulting fit. Two contemporary artists/designers inspired by these restrained patterns come to mind.

Mexico City-based designer Carla Fernandez gains inspiration from the indigenous clothing of her country. Geometric patterns demonstrate an economy of materials as the dimensions are based on those of the backstrap loom on which the cloth is woven, and folding rather than cutting is used to manipulate cloth. Fernandez works directly with artisans through her fashion line and mobile laboratory, Taller Flores, to design and produce clothes that combine traditional and modern processes. 

According to fashion writer, Sass Brown, by "having a pedagogy for artisans to communicate through design, Fernandez's philosophy is that tradition is not static and fashion is not ephemeral." In her book, Taller Flora (download here), she describes how a fresh approach to indigenous clothes resulted from her studies in art history that included avant garde movements like Russian Constructivism that merged with design. 

The geometry of Constructivist uniforms are also what influenced pioneering artist, Andrea Zittel. Along with every other mode of living - homes, furniture, vehicles, food - her clothing experiments adhere to strict guidelines for prolonged periods of time. Her Personal Panel and A-Z uniform series not only reference the utopian ideals of these movements, but also a method of assembly that rejects the cutting of fabric, altering it from its orginal form. In her Smockshop project, she works with artists to produce income by reinterpreting her single panel garment into something original, working by her principle that 'rules make us more creative.'  She references the indigenous Huipil form as a basis for one iteration of the smock. 

Click here to see more of the latest uniforms produced at A-Z West, her Institute of Investigative Living, located in Joshua Tree.

Now from the County Seat Supplies collection:

silk stripe blouse, two square panels

knit serape, single square panel with added shawl collar

hand-knit bird tunic, two rectangular panels

cotton blend huilpil-form crop top, two panels each bisected at a diagonal 

a circular process

Salt 2: boatbuilding, sailmaking, island people, river driving, bean hole beans, wooden paddles and more Yankee doings

From the introduction by Pamela Wood. Speaking of the Salt Boatyard, an apprenticeship program in Kennebunk, Maine during the 1970s in conjunction with Salt magazine, and the origins of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies currently located in Portland.

My colleagues and I at the Salt Boatyard let the natural lure of making a good product be the principal conduit for directed energy. Making the product becomes the incentive, reward, mechanism, and symbol for learning and growth...

...It is a circular process, this making and learning. To make a product, the student must learn and the product is his learning, his achievement; in the end, product and learning become one. It is an exhilarating union. 

winter cheese

A primary component of last night's dinner was cheese.  I thought about titling this post Winter Cheese/Winter Pounds but then that would suggest that I don't indulge in this with the frequency that I do. Anyhow, I had stopped in The Cheese Iron, a terrific shop just a few minutes south of Portland, where I got in a healthy dose of cheese-talk which apparently I require from time to time. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by their well-curated selection, we discussed the ones that only come along, or are at their peak, this time of year. Seasonality isn't something a lot of people associate with cheese, but between the cycle of milk production and the aging process, this is certainly the case.

I ended up carrying away two cows' milk styles from Vermont that I had heard of, but never tried.  Winnimere popped out at me right away.  From Jasper Hill in Greensboro, it's a farmstead, raw milk washed-rind cheese that was specifically developed to take advantage of the high fat and protein of their Ayrshire cow's winter milk. Aged at just three to six weeks, it becomes available in February then only for five months. There are so many beautiful components to this cheese: it is wrapped in cambium from the spruce trees located on the farm and better yet, it involves a partnership with Hill Farmstead Brewery down the road which supplies the beer that the cheese is washed with. In fact, the cheese and beer ferment side by side, sharing bacteria and resulting in a moderately stinky, buttery paste that is just as easily eaten with a spoon.

The Cellars at Jasper Hill is known for its cooperative aging caves, but that's a longer post for another time...hopefully, after an upcoming visit.

The second is Tarentaise from Spring Brook Farm in Reading. While this cheese is made year round, its alpine style benefits from grassy spring milk and once aged the standard ten months, this time of winter is prime time for enjoyment. It is also a raw milk, farmstead cheese produced from the farm's forty Jersey cows.  It is named for the region in France that inspired it and made in a traditional European method, although the - okay, I'll use the word - terroir make it unique to Vermont. It's a semi-hard cheese - my wedge at least not being all that dry - but complex and 'prickly' as described by Murray's. Delicious.

(Interestingly, Spring Brook Farm also hosts a program called Farm for City Kids which treats the farm like an outdoor classroom to which academics are applied and character building encouraged...what an unexpected and admirable facet to the operation.)

Rounded out with a bottle of Malbec and smoky chipotle 72% dark chocolate from Byrne & Carlson in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, The Cheese Iron delivered last night.  I made a cous cous dish too, but whatever.

a field trip in textile history

Last week, I paid a visit to the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, which houses one of the largest collections of its kind. After three hours (and only because the museum was closing), I had spent most of that time soaking in the comprehensive permanent exhibition, which includes everything from clothing, samples and household textiles to the full gamut of tools and machinery, as well as a wealth of information regarding the development of individual materials, factory architecture, and labor.

This is a selection of some of the objects that I was drawn to (no flash photography, of course). As an excellent online resource, the collection can also be accessed through The Chase Catalogue.

Pennsylvania floor looms with heavy timber framing of German and Flemish traditions.  Men were professional weavers in Pennsylvania, while women were responsible for spinning.  When women began to learn the craft during the 19th century, it was only for producing work for their families.

Womens' linen pockets from the late 18th/early 19th century, a separate garment tied around the waist under, and accessed by slits in the side of, the skirt.

Mid-19th century student sample notebook from England, noting the results of solutions, times and temperatures on the printing process.

Mens wool cap, mid-19th century

This 1844 bed cover from New Hampshire represents a unique body of work in this same color palette whose provenance was unknown until recently.

An 1848 cotton ginghams sample book from Lancaster Mills, Massachusetts, one of the early factories where cotton lent itself to the invention of power spinning and weaving.

A variety of undergarments became available in stores or in catalogs like this one from New York, 'Chemises,' for the Spring and Summer collection of 1887.

Hand sewn linen and silk sewing bag, 1917-1925, representative of the Arts and Crafts movement aesthetic.

An 1873 lithograph of Harmony Mills in Cohoes, New York which shows the belting system used to transfer power between floors. 

"An anaemic little spinner in a New England cotton mill," a 1910 photograph by Lewis Hine who documented child labor for the National Child Labor Commitee, which advocated for laws ending employment of underage children and shortening work days to eight hours.

Also from 1910, The Royal Tailors (New York and Chicago) sample book.  A bit difficult not to think of the little girl in the proceeding photograph and consider the workforce that made at least the dress shirt in this look possible.

A room including power looms and bobbin machines dating from the 1920s to the 1940s. A video explained how they individually operate and showed them in action.

meet your cheese maker

This Sunday, October 9th, is the Maine Cheese Guild’s annual Open Creamery Day, which provides the opportunity for touring and tasting with fifteen participating cheese makers across the state.  As they recommend, the perfect day to pepper in stops at orchards and breweries (and for some of us, flea markets and thrift stores).  See their website for a map and details.

time/bank: time/food in new york

One of many events and installations involved in Creative Time's exhibition, Living as Form, a survey of socially engaged art which is currently located around and about the Lower East Side.

T:STYLE

T Magazine: Stirring the Pot | Time/Food at Abrons Art Center

By By KEVIN MCGARRY

Published: September 23, 2011

Now serving at a pop-up restaurant, downtown: free lunches, of dishes designed by a long list of very accomplished visual artists.

Julieta ArandaAn alternative currency for Time/Bank, designed by Lawrence Weiner.

kennebec cheesery at koons farm - sidney, maine

My introduction to Kennebec Cheesery was by way of Portland’s Wednesday farmers market in Monument Square. A farmstead producer, owner Jean Koons, specializes in chevre. Recently, the Koons were kind enough to host friend/photographer, Natalie Conn, and myself to a visit at their farm and facility in Sidney, ME.

We arrived after a little over an hour’s drive north from Portland - where slowly the landscape changes over to wide expanses of rolling hills - and were greeted by Jean and her husband, Peter, who were heading out to pasture to tend to their ten kids, just born in April. We felt welcome from the start, even the little goats anxiously vocalizing their pleasure to see us. It was time to move the fencing back so that the kids could feed on fresh, tall grass and wildflowers. Jean is a native of New Zealand, where this method of rotational grazing has its roots.

She noted how Queen Anne’s lace and clover are favorites while Peter pointed out that their tastes seem to change, one day drawn to a particular plant and the next, not having a taste for it at all. They began the operation six years ago, located on Peter's family farm, and this is the relationship these folks have with their animals… a scale of farming and production where they not only monitor the details of their goats’ behavior, but even name each one. 

After just a year, the kids will begin producing milk. Milking starts in early spring and lasts until December or January, each goat producing slightly less than a gallon per day, leaving Jean with 14-16 gallons to work with. In November, on the verge of ‘drying off’ for the winter, they eat hay that comes from the farm, living in the hoop house that sits next to the milking parlor.

The milking parlor, cheesemaking room and aging room are housed in the same building which was built in 2006 with the help of friends, family and a grant from Farms for the Future, using recycled materials and lumber primarily sourced from their land.

Here, the mature goats grazed in a separate pasture from the kids.  We observed the herd mentality of their movements.  This includes a natural pecking order, which Jean said can be seen by how they organize themselves as they enter the milking parlor. Based on seniority, the goats file through a short set of railings from pasture to parlor.

Milking is accomplished with a simple pumping system that draws the milk into buckets in an adjacent room.  From there, we each stepped into a pair of white rubber boots (brought from New Zealand) as we entered the production space.  

The process of making her chevre ‘Cobbles’ (a staple in our home) takes five days and rotates throughout the week, three times a week. Simply put, the process goes like this: 1-innoculate, 2-scoop, 3-flip, 4-salt, and 5-roll and package.

Jean dishes the curd from the vat into cylindrical moulds and allows the whey to thoroughly drain into the tray below before filling them a second and final time. The moulds are covered until the next day when they are flipped, and on the fourth day, are removed from the moulds and salted.

On the last day, she sets out three plates (made by each of her three children – the laminated marker drawings we all made in school), each holding the ingredients for rolling: dill, cracked peppercorns, and herb de provence.

Jean was also working with inoculated Jersey milk that comes from a farm seven miles down the road – contrasting greatly from the goat milk with its rich yellow hue – dishing it into pyramid shaped moulds for her Cow Cobble cheese. This cheese came about when one of her distributors asked about a product she might be able to carry on throughout the winter (cow’s drying off period is much shorter than goat’s). The finished product is stored in olive oil, additional ingredients including basil/garlic/pine nut and roasted tomato/chili pepper.

She is experimenting with aged cheeses and in particular, shared with us her Caerphally project: Welsh hard, crumbly cows' milk wheels. These are stored in the aging room between two and three months alongside shelves lined with the Cobbles and jars of her cows' milk yogurt. As we spoke, Jean was brushing the wheels with a cream wax to seal in moisture and protect the rind.

As Jean continued to work, as to be expected, our conversation drifted to regulatory issues. For one, the matter of using raw milk for cheese production. Regulated by the FDA, raw milk cannot be used for cheese aged under 60 days. The state of Maine has made it easier for small producers by allowing 'heat-treated' (reaching 150 degrees for a half-hour) milk opposed to pasteurization...a middle ground that saves hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in equipment that simply isn't viable for facilities of this scale.

But the question of exactly how much regulation isn't a simple one. In New Zealand, for instance, she explained that regulations are the same no matter the size of the producer and a move in that direction might not be a bad thing. The worry is that people can get into it producing something like cheese not realizing the potential dangers involved and as she says, "One bad experience will destroy it for all of us."

Jean was one of the founders of the Maine Cheese Guild, which has worked with the state government to help shape regulations. She described it as 'very supportive and helpful,' providing classes and workshops at all levels.  The recent re-posting on the website of their position on local food ordinances reiterates Jean's point in that it "believes that the best way for professional cheese makers to guarantee the quality of their product is being appropriately licensed...".

The amount of work Jean puts into Kennebec Cheesery is impressive.  Besides the day-to-day production and tending to the herd (which also includes Kahtadin sheep for lamb meat), this is a business and running a business also means marketing.

She began selling at farmers' markets and at local stores, Uncle Dean’s Good Groceries and Barrels Community Market in Waterville, and has since expanded to restaurants. She expressed both her gratitude and hopefulness for farmers’ markets as they have continued to grow over recent years.  Selling in Augusta, Waterville and Portland markets, she recognizes the value of such a direct method of marketing, allowing farmers and producers to think more creatively about their product due to the immediacy of the feedback they receive.

Kennebec Cheesery at Koons' Farm is a place where living and making cannot be separated. I encourage you Mainers to seek out their product, one in which they have a hand in every step, drawing a direct line from what goes into the goats' belly to what goes into ours. Elsewhere, find and support your local cheesemakers...people like the Koons whose diligence makes our lives just a little better.  

Many thanks to Natalie for collaborating on this project, the first of more to come. Visit www.natalieconnphotography.com for a full slideshow of her photographs.

some philly love

It’s hard to believe, but it is exactly a year ago that the move was made from Philadelphia to Portland.  I’m feeling a bit nostalgic so today, here’s to recognizing just a few of the many amazing people and projects going on in that city.

Philly Stake

Philly Stake is the city’s iteration within an international network of micro-granting programs to support creative, community-engaged projects via locally-sourced public dinners. I am so pleased to have been apart of a small group of co-organizers that, after consulting with the folks at FEAST Brooklyn and months of planning, the first dinner ended up being scheduled for the weekend after I moved. I headed back south to help prep for and attend the first event, which was beautiful, delicious, exciting, well-attended and well-funded. Philly Stake continues to grow and is supporting folks and ideas that contribute to making Philadelphia such a dynamic place to live.

BLUEREDYELLOW

I actually befriended Mira Adornetto while working on Philly Stake. Mira was in the beginning stages of forming a new company, a design and natural dye house. It’s amazing to see how far she and her business partner have come in the past year. Mira’s passion for supporting local agriculture is tremendous and this is clear in BLUEREDYELLOW's thoughtful, hands-on approach to sourcing their materials.

Greensgrow Farm

Emerald Street Urban Farm

Preston's Paradise

Mill Creek Urban Farm

Urban farming is alive and well in Philadelphia so I couldn’t name just one.  Some farmers have been at it for a decade and others, for a couple of years. These are just several initiatives which I have had the opportunity to be acquainted with, people who are working hard to fill a void of urban vacancy by replenishing it with education and nutritious food for their communities.